Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Working On Mac

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My oldest WD internal drive is 14 yo and all of a sudden it started clicking loudly and shutdown itself after 30sec. Removing the data cable as WD suggest didn't help. A guy from recovery services said, if it's spinning, 99.9% it's not the PCB. My HDD never fell, nor got a physical damage. Some times our External HDD Won't detect properly, This article guide you to fix External HDD (hard drive/disk) not working or responding, There is no matter you are using WD Elements External HDD, Seagate external hard drive, SanDisk or Toshiba hard disks, etc., Let's see how to repair not responding external hard drive now.

Summary : Is your hard drive showing light in it when you connect it to pc but not detecting.This comprehensive guide will tell you what you can do about it and how easily you can resolve this issue.


I am using 2TB External Hard Drive since last 3 and a half years to store both my personal memories and business critical data. Till yesterday, I have not faced any issue, but today, I cannot access it. Whenever I connect it to my desktop, I get nothing in return apart from a blinking LED light and weak continuous beeps.

I even checked Disk Management, but it is not even detectable over there. The situation is scaring me as the drive includes almost 89.54 GB data and each of bit of this information is crucial for me. Any solution to Fix External Drive Blinking but Not Detectable Issue? I am in a state to handle the data loss. Please help me in external drive recovery. — Tom Webron

If your problem is similar to Tom and you are also looking forward to a solution, then this blog is for you. What is the mac address on my alexa device. It entails you about various effective methods to fix the issue and get all lost data.

Getting Started

How to Fix External Drive Blinking but Not Detectable Issue?

Let's take into consideration one by one.

Situation 1: External Hard Drive not Detected Error

Using several approaches you can fix External Hard Drive not Detected Error. Among all, the most common and widely used ways are:

Fix 1: Change USB Port Unlock mac with iphone fingerprint.

It is the first port of call. The reason being, there are equal chances of USB Port damage. Thus, plug in your hard drive into another Port to identify the exact cause and confirm whether a problem exists with the drive or not.

Fix 2: Turn On USB Root Hub

Another simple trick to fix the issue. In this, you just have to Turn On all USB Root Hub.

Execution Steps are:

  1. Click Start
  2. Type devmgmt.msc
  3. Press Enter
  4. Click Device Manager
  5. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers
  6. Now, right-click on USB Root Hub, choose Properties followed by Power Management
  7. Disable Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
  8. Follow the process for all USB Root Hub
  9. Reboot PC

Fix 3: Clean-up Virus

There are equal chances of virus infection. To resolve it the best solution is to use virus cleaning software. It has a potential to remove the virus from the drive as well as PC and make your drive accessible.

Situation 2: External Drive Not Working but Blinking

Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Working On Macbook Pro

Solution 1: Unhide all Hidden Devices

  1. Go to Start
  2. Type: devmgmt.msc
  3. Hit Enter
  4. Under Device Manager, choose View followed by Showhidden devices
  5. Click on + sign to expand all notes
  6. Right-click on greyed entries and choose uninstall
  7. Lastly, reboot the PC and try again

Solution 2: Uninstall Driver

  1. Go to Start
  2. Key in devmgmt.msc and press Enter
  3. Expand Universal Serial Universal Serial Bus controllers
  4. Right-click on each USB device and click Uninstall
  5. Verify whether there is an unrecognized device or not.
  6. If there is any, click on Drivers tab and uninstall the drivers
  7. Again, check My Computer/My PC for external drive
  8. If does not show, restart your PC. ( in case if it shows initially but disappear later, then repeat the above step and click on Disk Management -> Change Drive Letter -> Reconnect it)

Solution 3: Change Registry

Modifying the registry is another great approach to fix the issue. Steps to modify Registry are:

  1. Go to Start
  2. Type: regedt32 and Hit OK
  3. Backup Registry
  4. Click Export
  5. In left side, click OK,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
  6. Delete upper filter or lower filter
  7. Retry External Drive
Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Working On Mac

Now, open your drive to access your data.

Surprised as your data is not there!

Wondering what's next? How can you recover data?

Don't panic, third-party recovery tools like Stellar Data Recovery- Standard for Windows is available to help you. You just have to download, install, register, launch and follow its recovery wizard steps:

Steps are:

  1. Select Type of Data and Location
  2. Scan the Drive and Preview the found files
  3. Recover the scanned files and Save them at desired location

Why is it a sure-shot solution?

  1. Firstly, it is a software-directed approach so, there is no possibility of data loss or compromise unlike manual process
  2. Secondly, you don't need any technical expertise to solve the issue
  3. Thirdly, it is secure, reliable and efficient
  4. Fourthly, you might end up fixing one issue but failed to fix another.

Wd Drive Not Connecting

Additional information

  • Reasons for Drive Turning Undetectable

There is no any defined reason to turn your drive into the undetectable state. Many factors lead to this error. Some common factors are:

  • Virus attack
  • Partition Issue
  • Dead USB Ports
  • Driver Issue
  • Wrong File System

Hard Drive Death Count on this comprehensive guide to fix the issue and restore the data with 100% data security!

Working

Now, open your drive to access your data.

Surprised as your data is not there!

Wondering what's next? How can you recover data?

Don't panic, third-party recovery tools like Stellar Data Recovery- Standard for Windows is available to help you. You just have to download, install, register, launch and follow its recovery wizard steps:

Steps are:

  1. Select Type of Data and Location
  2. Scan the Drive and Preview the found files
  3. Recover the scanned files and Save them at desired location

Why is it a sure-shot solution?

  1. Firstly, it is a software-directed approach so, there is no possibility of data loss or compromise unlike manual process
  2. Secondly, you don't need any technical expertise to solve the issue
  3. Thirdly, it is secure, reliable and efficient
  4. Fourthly, you might end up fixing one issue but failed to fix another.

Wd Drive Not Connecting

Additional information

  • Reasons for Drive Turning Undetectable

There is no any defined reason to turn your drive into the undetectable state. Many factors lead to this error. Some common factors are:

  • Virus attack
  • Partition Issue
  • Dead USB Ports
  • Driver Issue
  • Wrong File System

Hard Drive Death Count on this comprehensive guide to fix the issue and restore the data with 100% data security!

If you are among those who have tried any of these approaches to fix the undetectable external drive, then please let us know which worked for you. Also, if there is any other fix way that worked for you, please share through comment.

Posted by Katrina to Mac Data Recovery Tips on January 7th, 2019

I have a 1 TB WD external HD that won't mount. I connect it via firewire to my MacBook Pro running OS 10.13 High Sierra. My mac sees the drive, it just won't mount. I've also tried to mount it via USB, but again, my system sees the drive, but won't mount it. Does anyone have any suggestion what I can do?

Generally, when you connect an WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung external hard drive to Mac, it will be automatically mounted, then you can perform read and write operation on it. Alternatively, you can also select the disk and click on Mount to make it accessible by the operating system using Disk Utility.

However, hard drive problems may happen that your WD external hard drive won't mount on Mac, usually when you desperately need to access some data stored on it. Remain calm, all data on WD external hard drive is still there. This article will explain how to fix WD My Passport not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected.

Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Working On Mac

WD external hard drive won't mount on Mac, how to fix?

First of all, if your WD external hard drive is listed on the left-hand-side menu of Disk Utility, you can make sure it doesn't have any hardware problem. Why the WD external hard drive won't mount? It is because the file system of the disk has been corrupted, preventing the disk from being accessible on Mac. Just try these solutions below.

Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Working On Mac Desktop

Solution 1: Run Disk Utility to repair the WD external hard drive

Microsoft office for mac phone number support. No matter what problems you are meeting on a disk, First Aid is your first choice to repair it.

Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.

Step 2: Choose the unmountable WD external hard drive.

Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.

Solution 2: Reformat to fix WD My Passport not mounting

If Sometimes, the Disk Utility may not function as desired. In this situation, the only solution is to reformat the WD external hard drive. But reformatting will remove all data on the disk. In order to avoid data loss, you have to recover lost data from unmountable external hard drive as soon as possible.

Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable WD external hard drive on Mac

As the best free Mac data recovery, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is able to recover lost data from unmountable, unreadable, corrupted, inaccessible external hard drive, hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, etc. It supports to recover documents, photos, music files, videos, emails on Big Sur 11/macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

2. Launch this program. Select the unmountable WD external hard drive and click 'Next'. The program will start scanning this drive for recoverable files.

3. After the scanning process finishes, you can click the found files and preview.

4. Choose what you want to get back and click 'Recover'.

5. Go through the recovered files and make sure all desired files are back.

Step 2: Fix WD external hard drive not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected on Mac by reformatting

1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

2. Select the unmountable WD external hard drive and click 'Erase' on the top.

3. Provide a name and a format to erase the drive.

4. When finished, you can mount your WD external hard drive on Mac and use it again.

Also read: Other ways to erase external hard drive on Mac

Hope this tutorial can help to fix WD external hard drive not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected on Mac. If your WD external hard drive not recognized on Windows, it is also easy to be fixed. If you have any question, please feel free to contact us.

Also read: Can't See External hard drive showing up on Mac, What to do?

Still have questions?





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